Quarantine To-Dos: Free Online Courses & Health Programs | Part 1

Today, in the world caught by a pandemic and surrounded by panic and despair, we want to touch upon something positive and encouraging. We realize we are in the midst of uncertain and uneasy times, and understand all the seriousness of the situation. Once again, we encourage you to self-isolate and be responsible for the sake of your own health and health of others.

While you are on the quarantine or are self-isolated, there are dozens of things for you to do. Various organizations and companies have provided discounts or free trials for online courses and services. Here’s a first selection of the things to do during the quarantine. We will try to update this list as soon as we find more cool things to do! Enjoy, and feel free to complete the list in the comments.

Online Education

It’s always been there and more courses are appearing every day. Now is the best time to either perfect your skills in a certain direction or learn something completely new. Here are some obvious and non-obvious platforms for free online education:

○ Online Courses by Harvard University

Harvard University offers dozens of free courses on a variety of different, sometimes unexpected topics. You can learn about the Science of Weather or take a course on Preventing the Next Pandemic. Courses last for a few weeks, where you can get quite profound knowledge on a certain topic.

○ Coursera Free 1-Day Courses

Coursera offers a bunch of courses that can be finished in one day. This offers an opportunity to learn something new every day. Fantastic opportunity. And, if you are a student, Coursera offers you a free subscription for the time of the quarantine. The subscription offers hundreds of various courses.

○ The Science of Happiness

This is a course offered by edX, that also provides courses from MIT, Harvard University, Berkeley University, and others. This particular course by Berkeley teaches positive psychology. You will learn science-based principles and practices for a happy, meaningful life. Very important during such uneasy times.

○ Graphic Design Course by Shaw Academy

This is a 16 weeks long course, which is being offered for free at the moment, along with other cool courses. You will listen to hours of online coaching, boost your design skills, and will even get a certificate of completion. It is a time investment, which is worth every minute of it. What do you think?

○ Fashion Styling and Image Making by Business of Fashion

This is only one of the courses, provided by BoF. They offer a variety of wonderful courses, which are very tempting to take. Once used to be completely free, now you need to be a member of BoF in order to take the courses. Good thing – you can take all their courses and have access to them for as long as you pay. It can be a bit pricey (156EUR yearly), but we believe it is totally worth it. This course is taught by Lucinda Chambers, who has been at the forefront of magazine publishing as fashion director of British Elle and British Vogue, where she held the position for 25 years and established long-lasting relationships with some of the world’s leading photographers. Most recently, she styled Pharrell Williams and Imaan Hammam for the December 2017 cover of US Vogue. Isn’t this exciting?

○ Personal Style Course by Our Member Silvia Cosma

Silvia says that getting to know and own your personal style can bring you assured self-expression, confidence, extra time, and added value. With 5 actionable steps, this course is designed to help you uncover the confidence of expressing yourself and your inner world to the outer one, through your personal style. We are very proud of Silvia starting her own course. Go, check it out!

○ Online Singing Classes by Nanda Akkerman

If you always wanted to improve your singing skills, but couldn’t find time or motivation, the time has come!   Singing is a very pleasurable, sometimes meditating process. Check Nanda’s account and get in touch with her to book a class. Don’t forget your singing videos here at Fashion Potluck.   

○ Online Mindfulness Course

Be Mindful is the only digital Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) course. This 4-weeks course promises to reduce your level of stress, anxiety, and depression and improve mental wellbeing. It is not a bad idea to take this course during pandemic times. It isn’t free, yet the price is quite affordable – 30GBP.

Health

○ The Down Dog App

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, this app offered free usage until April. To students, they extended a free period until July! We already testes the app, and it is a great home yoga training – you can choose various types of sessions to make your work-from-home better. Love it!

○ Yoga with Maura

Maura Ruth, a yoga teacher from Dublin, is offering free yoga workouts on her YouTube channel. Supporting the studios that had to close down, Maura is recording various types of yoga training and uploads them onto her channel, making them available for free. Great initiative!

○ «Calm Coronavirus Anxiety» by Stop, Breathe, Think

The meditation app Stop, Breathe, Think launched a new section, called “Calm Coronavirus Anxiety”. The section has various meditation practices, which are available for free, compared to the rest of the app. Meditate, breathe, and calm down.

○ CWF Collective by Our Member Carla West

We are happy to share another course by our member. Carla, who is a certified personal trainer, launched an online fitness course. It is an 8-weeks course, which starts on the 23^rd of March. We have personally trained with Carla and can recommend this course to everyone! ♥

○ FORM Barre Training

FORM, a Pilates and Barre studio in Amsterdam, shared two wonderful Barre workouts. They are available online and for free by the link above. Check it out, mix them up, and enjoy the routine.♥ As well, this weekend the ladies have announced the schedule for the live sessions, held in Zoom. Drop a message in their Instagram to reserve your spot!

○ PLTS IGTV training

PLTS, a Reformer Pilates studio in Amsterdam has shared a free online Pilates training, available on their IGTV. The training consists of two video sessions, one of 15 minutes long and another one - of 10. We generally love training at PLTS, and are extremely happy to have an opportunity to train with them online from now on. 

○ Oysho Live Sessions

Oysho, a homewear and sportswear brand, is supporting the "workout at home" movement too. On their website, they published a schedule of Free Online Classes, mostly held through their IGTV channel or Instagram Live Sessions. You can either join one (which is more fun) or watch it in your free time, as the recordings are available by the link above. Sessions include various Yoga Sessions, Dancing, and Boxing. Sounds fantastic! And, there's almost no excuse now!;)